[codename S.p.a.c.e] Development Log Topic

Some of you may know, but I am also addicted to boardgames, and especially what we call Eurogames.No geographic discrimination in this (some of the best eurogames are written by americans like Alan Moon or Tom Lehman), but this kind of boardgames have been reinvented in Germany (let's say that the starting poing could be Settlers of Catan) and define a new kind of standard :- no random or limited random (light use of dices if needed)- usually less than 2h of play (mostly 1h)- the them is not the most important part, mechanism are the heart of the game.

This project is about using some mechanisms inspired by boardgames I like and practice into a new videogame. It will not be a straight port from an existing game. It will not be a straight transcription of a boardgame that I could create.

OK, let's start to explain the concept. This game is for 1 to 4 players. So, all informations must be visible, you cannot imagine to reproduce hidden card from player's hand if his opponent can look at the screen. Also, it must allow players to act simultaneously, and not to let one player at a time to play.

The theme is based on space exploration. Each player start from its own plante and will develop his empire by exploration, colonisation. In order to progress and get new technologies, he will need to do some research. In order to build these new technologies, he will ned to get materials...

The main screen of the game is a dashboard where every player can see some of his characteristics :He can also choose one of the 7 possible actions. Every player choose in secret his action. Then, the turn can start.The possible actions are :Explore = explore intersideral map, in order to discover new planets, asteroids...Terraform = colonise a newly discovered planet...Product = for each of the 4 material, the stock will be incremented by the prod capacity...Research = spend experience points into different capacities, in order to discover new technologies...Build = build a new techology, once discovered...Market = trade material...Prospect = get 1 free material...

Once every player has chosen his action, a recapitulative dashboard is displayed :

Now, a few words on action selection. Except for prospection, when a player chose an action, every other player will be able to perform this action. But the player(s) who chosed it wil get a special bonus. This is done to avoid player to wait to long for another player. And also, thi include a part of double-guessing in game (I think he will choose this so I can choose this other, but if no one...). With prospect action, you only get 1 free goods, randomly chosen (depending on your prospection skill).

In next posts, I will explain each possible actions and specific bonus.

Here is the alpha demo version.It allows only one player, and IA are not operant.Build and Market actions are not active.Terraform action is not active because Colonisation status is Off (it will be enable via Build action)Space.zip341.17KB750 downloads

On title screen, you can adjust it to your TV set by pressing C button and moving D-pad.You can change the background by pressing B button and moving D-pad left and right (5 different background are available)Press A to start game.The player selection menu is displayed but not operative. Press C button to go to main game menu.Then select an action with Jagpad. The red square near player avatar indicates that everyone has made his choice. Press A.You can have a look on different action screens. I will get back to each of them later in this topic.

Now, a few words on action selection. Except for prospection, when a player chose an action, every other player will be able to perform this action. But the player(s) who chosed it wil get a special bonus. This is done to avoid player to wait to long for another player. And also, thi include a part of double-guessing in game (I think he will choose this so I can choose this other, but if no one...). With prospect action, you only get 1 free goods, randomly chosen (depending on your prospection skill).

Before the explanation of the explore action, just a few words on mechanism behind the action selection.The Jaguar has a (nearly) unique feature which is the jagpad and the numeric pad. I wanted to use this specific plus, and a simultaneous selection is really adapted to numeric pad.

There are lots of boardgames with role or action selection, a brief history :- Citadels (B. Faidutti) : there is 8 different roles, one is discarded secretly, then each player chose a role secretly. So you have a clue on what previous players may have chosen but you cannot be sure because of the discarded card. Then role are called in their order and player reveal itself, do the standrd turn action (take money or card then build) and his specific action, depending on his role. Note that role selection is based on Meuterer/verrater (MA. Casasole-Merkle)- Puerto Rico (A. Seyfarth) : the role are visible, at his turn, a player choose between all available role, and all player perform the role. The active player get a bonus depending on the role. Then next player choose between remaining roles. When all player chosed one role, remaining role get one money as bonus, and all role are available. First player change, and a new turn begins. Note that there is one role (prospection) where only active player perform the action (get 1 money). Everithing is show in the game (except victory point gained at expeditions)- San Juan (A. Seyfarth) is the card game based on Puerto Rico. Same mechanism for role selection, but the game use hidden card in hand.- Race for the galaxy (T. Lehmann) was intended to be the Puerto Rico cardgame adaptation. But, as San Juan has been done before, the author changed his game into a spece theme, and adapt the role selection. Each player chooses between different roles simultaneously. Then all players reveal their choics. All player will perform all selected roles. A bonus is awarded to player's selected role.

So basically, the mechanism that fit best would be Puerto Rico/San Juan or Race for the galaxy. I choosed Race for the Galaxy, because it add a small part of double guessing, and because everyone choose his role at the same time, so we lose less time.But the roles are different from R4TG, just because the game is not card oriented (in R4TG or San Juan, the money are your cards in hand, so you build a card in hand with other card that you discard). The prospector role come from Puerto Rico and is a wait & see role, when you do not want to give advantage to other player, but you get small reward.

Action 1/ ExplorationThis action does not exist in this form boardgames that inspired me. There are similar action in San Juan & R4TG but this is just draw new cards.Here, player will have the ability to explore map :

You notice on each player dashboard the notion of Range. When a player does not select Explore action, he is limited to explore to this range.If he chosed Explore, he can explore all the map (like Dakoi and Kurk players in this screenshot). Basically, in final version, bonus will probably be less important (add +2 to range)Of course, Range will be increased when buiding new technologies.There are 4 starting planet on each corner, other plantes are hidden, when a player discover one, it will be visible for eveyone, but belongs to nobody.There is also empty spaces and asteroids. When a player discover asteroids, his computer (the help bubble) will remember it. Asteroids give materials, more the first time, only 1 material other times. Other player can notice when you find asteroids, but unless they explore this case, there computer will not be aware of it.

Basically, you win 1 experience point when exploring an Unknown case (whatever it contains), 1 experience point when discovering a new planet, materials when exploring asteroids.

Action 2/ TerraformingBasically, this is the same display than Exploration. Once again, this action is possible due to the use of a computer/console, because it would be a pain to do in real (too much time lost into actions).The notion of range applies for everyone. A player can terraform any planet already discovered if it is into his range and if he already got a technology that allow him to terraform/colonise.There is delay of terraforming in turns, during this delay, the planet will be intransition phase. The bonus given to player is to decrease this delay.Once the terraforming is completed, depending on terraforming technologies built, the planet will be able to produce materials. So next time a production action will be performed, the planet will produce.

WOW, most coders stay away from RPGs. I can't wait to see this one! Oh by the way what the starting address? I like to try this one out.

This is not a RPG, but a boardgame inspired game. The kind of games you can make a whole game in something like 1 hour Of course, if you are not familiar with this kind of game, the first approach may be a bit strange.

But I guess that I should not use all my spare time playing Mass Efeect on my 360 and rather use some of it to continue work on this little game.

Action 3/ ProductionA very easy to understand action, the stock of each player will be incremented by the corresponding production. Players who chosed production as action will get free materials as rewards...This is basically the prodction action as defined in Puerto Rico or San Juan.An interesting point in Puerto Rico is that reserves of goods are limited, so if you cannot get enough goods from reserve to perform production action, then you 'lose' a part of this action. This will not occur here...

This is where you will spend your experience points hardly awarded for exploration

There are 5 different technologies in which you may want to spend XP points :ExplorationTerraformingProductionMarketProspection

In each of these technologies, there are different characteristics (Range, Efficiency..).The main goal of reserch is to spend enough XP points in order to unlock new build options.Depending on technology you will choose, you will have different build options and different way to play/win.Will you choose to explore wide space or optimise your productions ?

Note : in Research screen, Terroforming option have been removed and mix in Explore, in order to share the range characteristic.

Action 5/ Build

No screenshot yet

Building is the heart of the game. It will allow you to get larger exploration area, terraforming capacity and improve it, increase production process.In order to build,you will need to have the minimum XP points spent in research areas, and it will cost some materials.

Here is the work in progress list of build options, with name, experience required, cost needed and desciption of bonus.

I will come back lacter with Market explanation, as it is not implemented yet.So let's jump directly to last action

Action 7/ ProspectionThis action is very simple, you get 1 free material.The choice will depend on your probabilities of finding each material, if you have a look at bottom of build list, you will notice that some builds affect these probabilities (it is also used for terraforming, it affects which kind of material the planet will produce)This action is different from the other, because it does not affect other player, and give no extra bonus.Or you may consider it a wait move : do nothing (everyone) and give 1 material as bonus (player who chosed this action).This kind action exist in Puerto Rico, only when number of player is sufficient (but Puerto Rico does not have same role selection mechanism if you look closely at the first posts, so this action is only to allways give last player a choice between a standard role and get 1 bonus for himself only)This may be useful when you need an extra material and don't want to chose explore to go back on a asteroid or production, because this would imply to let opponent explore and produce (or maybe, you expect your opponent to chose explore & production and want another material, but be careful, if everyone act like you....)

This is not cancelled but I have not ork on this for a (long) while.There are still some things to do for technology, to implement the market, but the biggest problem is that last time I tested it for a long time, I had memory corruption and program crashes, so I need to find why, but it is not easy to play for 1 hour or 2 in order to make a (nearly random) bug appear, and having to retry if I don't find why...

And of course, there are still no AI, and this will be a big job to implement.